I ended up reading only a little for this month’s Tadoku contest, but I have a few excuses good reasons as to why that happened. But first, here’s all the stuff I got through. Several books are included this time!
2013年6月の読書メーター
読んだ本の数：21冊
読んだページ数：3948ページ
ナイス数：0ナイス
5分間ミステリー (扶桑社ミステリー)
読了日：6月30日 著者：ケン・ウェバー,片岡 しのぶ,Ken Weber
The MANZAI〈1〉 (ポプラ文庫ピュアフル)
読了日：6月29日 著者：あさの あつこ
クロノクルセイド (Vol.8) (ドラゴンコミックス)
読了日：6月28日 著者：森山 大輔
クロノクルセイド (Vol.7) (ドラゴンコミックス)
読了日：6月28日 著者：森山 大輔
クロノクルセイド (Vol.6) (ドラゴンコミックス)
読了日：6月28日 著者：森山 大輔
クロノクルセイド (Vol.5) (ドラゴンコミックス)
読了日：6月28日 著者：森山 大輔
電車男
読了日：6月27日 著者：中野 独人
LIAR GAME 5 (ヤングジャンプコミックス)
読了日：6月26日 著者：甲斐谷 忍
ゴッドシーカー 2 (電撃コミックス)
読了日：6月26日 著者：堤 利一郎
ゴッドシーカー 1 (電撃コミックス)
読了日：6月26日 著者：堤 利一郎
クロノクルセイド 4 (ヤングキングコミックス)
読了日：6月25日 著者：森山 大輔
最遊記RELOAD (3) （ZERO-SUMコミックス）
読了日：6月25日 著者：峰倉 かずや
デッドマン・ワンダーランド -12 (カドカワコミックス・エース)
読了日：6月22日 著者：片岡 人生,近藤 一馬
男子高校生の日常(3)(ガンガンコミックスONLINE)
読了日：6月16日 著者：山内 泰延
JUDGE(5) (ガンガンコミックス)
読了日：6月15日 著者：外海 良基
死ぬかと思った(2) (アスペクト文庫)
読了日：6月14日 著者：
最遊記RELOAD (2) (ZERO-SUMコミックス)
読了日：6月10日 著者：峰倉 かずや
最遊記RELOAD: 1 (ZERO-SUMコミックス)
読了日：6月9日 著者：峰倉 かずや
クロノクルセイド 3 (ヤングキングコミックス)
読了日：6月4日 著者：森山 大輔
クロノクルセイド 2 (ヤングキングコミックス)
読了日：6月3日 著者：森山 大輔
クロノクルセイド 1 (ヤングキングコミックス)
読了日：6月2日 著者：森山 大輔
読書メーター
Manga I read
First off, I’ll talk a little about the manga I read. Chrono Crusade was a really fun series and it’s only eight volumes long. If you like battles with demons, odd nods to Christianity, and character development, go for it.
西遊記RELOAD is a series I bought in Japan during my super Book-Off run in 秋葉原. I never read the original 西遊記 manga, but it was easy enough to get into. Not so easy to stay in, though. It got boring and I dragged myself through the third volume. The fight scenes were cool and not too long, so that’s good.
I got Godseeker based on the awesome looking cover. I wasn’t disappointed, that is until after I finished and thought about it for a few minutes. It’s a two volume work so it’s very short lived. The first volume did such a good job of setting up what I figured would be several volumes to come, but the second volume just felt like a rush job. It’s as if the project got suddenly got cancelled and they had to wrap up everything in volume two. It was interesting, but there were too many problems plot-wise with the second volume, like(**SPOILER**why didn’t リンゼル just take over the castle with her army of giant wolves in the first volume? Are we supposed to believe that hunger prevented her from avenging her entire tribe? On that note, did she really get over the massacre of her entire tribe just because she met a cute boy? Really?**END OF SPOILER**) I also wanted waaay more background on the enemy. We just get a few glimpses of a queen full of angst. I felt no need to consider her an enemy. If anything, **SORRY MORE SPOILER**I felt sorry for her since she was fighting the stuff of myth and legends, literally.**END OF SORRY MORE SPOILER** Okay, I should go on to the next manga.
Judge is basically a manga version of Saw, so don’t buy it if you’re squeamish. The next volume, 第六巻, will be the last and I will finally put some closure to that bloody mess of a manga.
Deadman Wonderland 第十二巻 finally came out and I picked it up right away. This manga is also a bloody mess, but way more interesting. I’m pretty sure #13 will be the last in this series too.
男子高校生の日常 is the second case where I prefer the anime to the manga (the first being 日常, so I think I know why). Don’t get me wrong, it’s still hilarious, but hearing the voices and seeing the scenes animated makes it even funnier.
Oh, Liar Game, you’re so confused with yourself aren’t you. Nevertheless, I’m glad to see that the manga is a lot better than the show.(Oh boy, the flashes, camera zooms, and annoying sound effects are coming back to me now.) Also they made フクナガ such a lame character in the show. Anyway, I read volume 5 and it’s more of the game with the sneaking money and ATM machines and stuff (The one where ヨコヤ is first introduced). It’s a great manga and フクナガ is my favorite character.
Books I read
死ぬかと思った２ is a collection of stories people send in about literal near-death experiences, or just really embarrassing moments. I wasn’t expecting so many 下ネタ, but it was interesting anyway.
電車男 probably needs no introduction for the Japanese language learning community. I finally got around to reading it after having it take up space in my bookshelf for who knows how long. The whole book is formatted like you’re reading a BBS, so it’s relatively easy to read despite the length. I will say, however, that I think it’s a bit over-rated. It was very interesting, but I’ve heard many people tell me about how awesome it was so my expectations were a bit high. It’s hilarious, but not exactly memorable in my opinion.
The MANZAI is a humorous story about a middle school transfer student and the boy who wants to recruit him for a manzai group. It’s a fun and easy read.
Five minute mysteries is exactly what it sounds like. Short mysteries that you try to solve. Answers are included in the book, so you can check to see how many you got right. I just blazed through it, so I didn’t really keep track of how many I got right.
I read one more book, but because of the time difference it didn’t make it into my 読書メーター list. I’ll talk about it next month.
Thoughts on Tadoku
(You can skip the next paragraph if you’re not interested in my personal crap)
I’d set a goal of 3015 pages for myself this contest I figured I’d do it since it’s within my abilities. Little did I know I would not have access to most of my collection for the first week and a half thanks to bug infestations. Long story short, everything in my house had to be wrapped up. Everything. And we had to keep things like that until after the second cleaning which happened on the 10th. Then after the cleaning, we had to put everything back, of course. It was like moving in all over again. And I found lots of old books that my grandparents had owned. And ended up reading a bunch of them instead of Japanese stuff (Couldn’t help it). In addition to my English reading binge, I started on a new study regimen for Japanese, so I spent the first two or so weeks of the contest testing and tweaking it. But the last and most important excuse is my family. After having not seen them for the majority of the past eight years, I figured I could put the books on hold for a month and get some quality time in, especially with the new addition (my niece). But of course at the end I wanted to reach my goal anyway but I failed. I did read a lot of books though, so overall I’m pleased.
Even though I failed to reach my goal, I am still proud of how far I’ve come thanks to these contests. It seems like only two years when I participated in my first contest (the first tadoku 2.0 contest), ecstatic with my hard-earned goal of 400 or so pages. I believe this contest has been immense in improving my Japanese.
So here’s yet another big thanks to @LordSilent for setting this up. If you want this contest to continue, I highly recommend donating so that he can keep the servers running for years to come. Do it!
